File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2002/bourdieu.0205, message 48


From: "Hiro Saito" <hirosophy-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: NY Times article on Riesman
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:33:42 -0400


>Well, if you happen to think "the issues of the age" are "date rape, wife 
>battering, the glass ceiling, the second shift, sexual harassment, the 
>matrix of domination, etc. etc. etc.," then perhaps these "vibrant" 
>feminist sociologists have something to say to you. I have no argument with 
>that; these are real concerns to many people. I, however, happen to think 
>"the issues of the age," in the US at least, are the health care crisis, 
>homelessness, globalization (which, among other things, involves women in 
>Costa Rica working for 31 cents/hour to make $150  Liz Claiborne Jackets

These two types of "issues of the age" (i.e., "feminist" and 
"old-fashioned-white") do not seem necessarily distinct. In fact, if we 
recognize "omnirelevance" of gender in everyday life as West and Zimmerman 
(1987 Gender and Society 2:125-151) argue in light of Goffman and Garfinkel, 
all the issues raised above appear to have _gendered_ aspects. (And what if 
a hierarchy of genders is always built in our signifying systems?)

Indeed, it is "women" who "work under horrible conditions and are actually 
beaten by their supervisors if they do not work quickly enough" in El 
Salvador. (I don't know El Salvador very well, but if the El Salvador 
culture legitimated masculine domination, then this cultural domination of 
"women" may be inculcated into those "women's" bodies to the extent that 
those "women" continue to be willing to endure beating because conception of 
being dominated is foreclosed from them--symbolic domination here.) So, 
Patrick who brought up the El Salvador "women" within the context of 
"globalization" resonates with "feminism" in a sense.

By the way, "globalization" (that has multiple dimensions) is 
"globalization" of human trafficking at the same time. And it is mostly 
"women" who are trafficked and forced into prostitution. (See the web page 
of United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, 
http://www.undcp.org/. "Sold as a Sex Slave in Europe" 
http://www.msnbc.com/news/725802.asp is also okay.)

Anyway, my point is that if we conceptualize gender as omnirelevant in 
social/cultural interactions as well as possibility of a hierarchy of 
genders, "feminist" and "old-fashioned-white" issues of the age seem to 
start converging.

Hiro

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